Theos-Talk Archives (September 2003 Message tt00072)

Wednesday, September 10, 2003

Re: ORIGINAL SECRET DOCTRINE editon of 1888
Electronic reprints are available.


Dear Friends:

Tony has given us the historical sequence of the several early editions
of the SECRET DOCTRINE 

Those who wish to access an electronic version of the ORIGINAL 1888
Edition will be able to do so through the following Web-sites:

study@blavatsky.net


mail@theosociety.org


inquiry@theosophycompany.org


I have made additional notes below.

Best wishes,

Dallas







---Original Message-----
From: mundo_xama [mailto:loboguara@expresso.com.br] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 6:15 AM
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Theos-World confusion on mangled SD III

-------------------------------------

Hi Tony

The confusion is set.
No need for misjudging...

In some countries of the world, like mine, the SD was published in 6 (
yes, six!) books, numbered from I ro IV !

I thought you were talking about the third volume of this collection of
6, which, by the way, I own.

What I can see is very grave, serious and sad too, and I agree that if
Annie edited HPB writings as you have stated ( and from what I wish to
examine by myself some day if I can) it is something too arrogant from
her part.

Unfortunately I have no access to the original edition.

About the other compilations, such as Major Arthur Powellīs,
Jinarajadasa, Leadbeater were released as "practical manuals" and though
they may not be compared, by no means, in brightness and depth, they
serve as a helping hand to the path.

Every theosophist agrees that SD is irreplaceable, but, just my own
example, I got to know Theosophy through a book called "the occult side
of things" from CW Leadbeater and I donīt feel deprived for this.

When I said SD could be elitist, donīt read the dead letter of it, I
consider not an easy book for everybody to read, and it is not really!



======================================



DTB	The SECRET DOCTRINE was written 11 years after ISIS UNVEILED .
In the interval the magazines THEOSOPHIST, PATH, LUCIFER were
published and carried further study of the material presented in ISIS
UNVEILED .

Additionally there was correspondence between Mr. A.P.SINNETT and the
Mahatmas. Arising from that were two books by A.P.SINNETT : ESOTERIC
BUDDHISM and the OCCULT WORLD.

All these have to be taken into account.

In the SECRET DOCTRINE it became necessary to draw all these stray
studies together. The first (original edition) of 1888. was designed to
cover, in the First vol. the rebirth of the Kosmos after a great
"resting period or sleep" called PRALAYA.[COSMOGENESIS] The 2nd Vol.
covers the history of human development: [ANTHROPOGENESIS].

Our attention is drawn to the systematic destruction of the historical
records and links we might have to antiquity -- so that our horizon (in
the West) seems limited to about 3 to 5,000 years at best.

In the East such a destruction did not occur, and the preservation of a
knowledge of the arts and sciences of antiquity and its continuous
history exist even today.

Both ISIS UNVEILED and the SECRET DOCTRINE draw upon these Eastern
sources.  

The Kabala of the Jews is one link partially preserved, though mangled
by its successive interpreters.

The difficulty, we in the West have, is one of language as we are not
familiar on a daily basis with the traditions and tongues of India and
China, Tibet and Mongolia, Burma, Ceylon and Thailand. Brahmins and
other groups in those countries preserved the records of ancient wisdom
and history. Mme. Blavatsky refers to these records at the outset, in
the Prefaces of both ISIS UNVEILED and the SECRET DOCTRINE.

To make it easier for the western student to approach these books and
specially the SECRET DOCTRINE HPB was in the process of writing a
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY. When she died. The work was completed in 1891 by
her close assistant and secretary Mr. G.R.S.MEAD. 

This one of the reasons for calling the SECRET DOCTRINE "difficult."
One has to be very persistent to learn an entirely new way of study,
and to replace the information that fills many of the gaps in our
traditional and scholarly hypothetical views of the past.  

In doing this HPB came into conflict with orientalists and
paleontologists of her day. This is amply recorded in the SECRET
DOCTRINE, and in many articles in the Theosophical magazines of those
years.

====================================


Do not exagerate.

As a professor I am, sometimes I am compelled to explain a subject twice
or as many diferent times and ways as it takes just in order for the
students to catch some particular meanings and although I use diferent
words at each time, I seem not to distort the sense of what must be
taught.Even I prescribe a diferent book on thet subject in order to
refresh the subjects.
In that way I think some extra books help the student.

Easy for me is like to re-tell the story, not distort, and additional
books of these authors, in spite of their former mess and behaviors,
iare not a sin.

Working Karma off is not easy but we can make things to make good karma
in everyday. Buddhism teach us.

Itīs just what i think.

Your quotations were very helpful for me to understand the mess on the
book III   
Thanks for the kind explanations and your attention., they were of great
help.

Eddy



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Tony 
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 6:15 AM
Subject: RE: Theos-World Re:mangled SD III


Hi Eddy and James

<<<In my humble opinion, the S.D., due to its consistent, original and
deep
information, could be exclusively fated to a thin elite, otherwise
Jinarajadasa, Leadbeater, Annie and others who made more synthetical
compilations and further investigations, becoming SD more
acessible.>>>

THE SECRET DOCTRINE was published in 1888 in 2 volumes, a triple
production
by H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters. This IS the original THE SECRET
DOCTRINE.

A 2nd edition appeared taken from the same plates.

HPB died in 1891

In 1893 (just 2 years after H.P.B's death) a "third and revised
edition" by
Annie Besant (and Mead) was published in 2 volumes. Do you think
she/they
had the occult knowledge to revise an occult work produced by HPB and
the
Masters?

In 1897 a collection of papers/writings by H.P.B. was published by
Annie
Besant and called the third volume. This can cause confusion as then
people think that "The Secret Doctrine" was published in 3 volumes.
It
wasn't.

By comparing the original edition (or facsimile) by H.P.B. and the
Masters,
with the third revised edition by Annie Besant, you can see for
yourself the
kind of alterations made, and come to your own conclusions. If you
see
that alterations have been made, you can then be pretty certain that
the
volume Annie Besant produce in 1897, and called vol.III of "The Secret
Doctrine," is also going to have been altered.

THE SECRET DOCTRINE was published in 1888. The three eternals (8s)
are ONE
(1).

Page 60 in the original edition is not numbered, although you may find
it
added in some of the facsimiles. HPB died in her 60th year. In
Theosophy
it is said there is no such thing as coincidence.

What is it that makes the SD more accessible?

In what way is it elitist?

"The Secret Doctrine" is dedicated "to all True Theosophists . . ."
rather
than to PhDs, to those who have been to University, to Scientists, to
those
with academic qualifications, to gardeners, to bakers, etc. IF it is
elitist it says something about the human race. In actual fact it is
there
for anyone from any walk of life, if they can but lift their heads.
The
student has to make the effort. Up until this time (1888), the
information
in these volumes was virtually inaccessible to people in the west.
Now
that it is available, should we be wanting others to make it easier
for us?
It is something that is not easy and can't be easy. Was working off
Karma
ever easy?

What is easy?

As HPB writes in "Practical Occultism":

"It is easy to become a Theosophist. Any person of average
intellectual
capacities, and a leaning toward the meta-physical; of pure, unselfish
life,
who finds more joy in helping his neighbour than in receiving help
himself;
one who is ever ready to sacrifice his own pleasures for the sake of
other
people; and who loves Truth, Goodness and Wisdom for their own sake,
not for
the benefit they may confer--is a Theosophist.

"But it is quite another matter to put oneself upon the path which
leads to
the knowledge of what is good to do, as to the right discrimination of
good
from evil; a path which also leads a man to that power through which
he can
do the good he desires, often without even apparently lifting a
finger. "

Tony


   

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